I mean I did. I chose the school, I chose the apartment, I chose my job. I made decisions, some thoughtful and some spontaneous, to build a new life here.

But the choice to want to move and restart in the first place was not one I made. It was made for me, when my original plans and dreams were decided against by someone else. Another person made decisions for their life, forcing me to make new decisions for mine.

It's a domino effect.

Sometimes I see reminders of that old life. Of the dreams and friends and community I had built in that small city in the southwest. I can so clearly remember who I was, how I felt, what I wanted. I can place myself there and I feel all of those emotions and desires again.

I wanted a small and simple life in that city, and it would have suited me just fine.I wanted an easy path of falling in love and getting married and building a home. I wanted everything to work out for me the same way it worked out for my friends.

God wanted more.

I try to remain incredibly grateful that God pulled me out of there and brought me here, to a new city with new people. A city with fresh air to breathe and a river to wash all the hard things away.

But at the same time I struggled for a long time with a sense of loss and grief over the decisions that lead me here. Grieving over the power and control to build my life the way I wanted, that was taken by another human being who wanted to build their life a different way than what they had promised to me.

How do you move from there?

x x x

Everything changed and while I had some authority over those decisions, brokenness and sin also had a say in the way events unfolded.

What I remember is this: regardless of who made those decisions, regardless of why I was faced with new choices, regardless of how I came to this new city, I serve a sovereign God who was not surprised by any of it. I am loved and held by a sovereign God who continues to work it for good.

He never stopped, even when I stopped trusting He would do what he promised.

In those moments of doubt I often panicked and started making plans and decisions for myself. I balked at the thought that God was holding everything in place, and dreamt up new jobs, new cities, new opportunities. In moments of doubt I forget that He sovereignly and purposefully brought me here in the first place, and He is not finished with me yet.

He has not given up on my dreams and my passions, even when I lose focus. That's the most beautiful truth about God that I know in this season: He created me intimately, and along with that created my dreams and passions and calling. So even in the interim of feeling like my job isn't what I hoped it might be or my studies aren't as fulfilling as I might have thought, I remember that He knows my dreams, He knows my goals, and He is leading me to the fulfillment of those things in His timing.

Sometimes things grow slowly and that's okay. They are growing just the same .